“So How Does It Work?”

Blue Corona has a whole flippin’ page of FAQs, but after spending the past two months traveling to trade shows and actually meeting face-to-face with our prospects, I’m confident that the real king question in the SEO/online marking/using your website as a lead generation tool world is this one:

“So how does it work?”

The question was largely prompted by the language on our beautiful new trade show booth: more traffic, more leads, more growth.

But don’t worry. This isn’t going to be a post about how SEO works—I’m not looking to put anyone to sleep. This is going to be a post that answers how Blue Corona gets our clients more traffic, leads, and growth. It’s a five step process, and, despite the fact that all businesses our unique, the process has applied to every company we’ve encountered so far.

Here’s how this is going to work—if you answer “yes” to any of the questions below, you’re allowed to skip that step and move on to the next one. If you get through the whole list and have answered “yes” to all the questions—what are you doing here? You don’t need us! If you answer “no” to any of the questions, call me and I’ll help get you squared away.

Are You (Accurately) Tracking All of Your Current Marketing Strategies?

Step 1: Make Data-Driven Decisions

Before you say “yes” and skip this question, asking someone “how did you hear about us?” when they call your company is NOT accurately tracking your marketing strategies.

I spoke to a custom home builder recently who did a lot of radio ads. Instead of using call tracking to determine which ads produced the best results, the builder relied on his customer service reps to ask the customer. Oh. And that also means the customer had to try and remember exactly where he or she heard the ad. Do you know how hard that is? I can hardly remember my grandparent’s birthdays let alone what radio station I was listening to on my drive in from work.

Bottom line—you can’t win the game if you don’t know the score. If you’re not accurately tracking all of your marketing strategies, it’s impossible to cost-effectively maximize your marketing ROI (online OR offline).

Do You Have a Website and Does It Consistently Generate New Business for You Each Month?

Step 2: Treat Your Website Like a Sales Rep

Last year I crawled Yelp’s API to see how many Chicago HVAC companies had no website listed on their Yelp profile. There were 275 of them JUST in Chicago and just in that industry.

My guess is there are a lot more companies out there who still don’t even have a website, let alone have a website that operates like a sales rep. These companies think they can rely on word of mouth referrals to continue to drive new business. But if you want more traffic, leads, growth, you can’t ignore the growing population of people who are searching for your products and services online—not asking their neighbors for recommendations.

Do You Have 1 or More Listings on the First Page of Search Results for the Key Words and Phrases Your Customers Are Using to Find Your Products and Services?

In an ideal world, you would have a paid ad listing, organic listing, local listing, video, etc. on the first page of search results for keywords relevant to their business. But that means you have to invest in pay per click, SEO, video marketing, social media, the whole shebang.

All of your online real estate—from your website to your Facebook page to each of your listings on search engine results and more—represents an opportunity to convert visitors to leads. So maximizing that real estate is key for getting more traffic, leads, and sales from the web.

Do You Know Your Website’s Visit-to-Lead Conversion Rate? Is It Above Average for Your Industry? What About Your Lead-to-Sale Conversion Rate?

Step 4: Continually Optimize Your Visit-to-Sale Conversion Rate

If your site gets 100 visits a month and you have a 1% website visit-to-lead conversion rate, you would get one lead a month from your website. If your site gets 100 visits a month and you have a 10% website visit-to-lead conversion rate, you would get 10 leads a month from your website without having to generate any additional visits!

Confused about conversion rate? Watch this:

This same concept can be applied to your lead-to-sale conversion rate. If you get 100 leads a month but your customer service reps are only closing 25% of them, there’s a huge opportunity for improvement there!

To get more web traffic and leads, you need to continually optimize your visit-to-sale conversion rate. The more effective your company’s sales process is, the more marketing options you have. If all other things are equal (average revenue per sale, gross margin, etc.), a company that converts twice as many web visits into leads can afford to pay twice as much per click or visit. Being able to pay more per click or visit allows you to bid higher in the PPC listings and spend more on SEO—both of which ultimately result in more traffic and leads.

Are You Seen as an Absolute Authority in Your Marketplace? Does that Authority Translate Online?

Step 5: Establish and Promote Your Company as THE Authority

The most successful companies online are those that establish themselves as THE authority for what they do in their respective markets. Over an extended period of time, there is no marketing substitute capable of trumping genuine authority.

From well-written content to high resolution project photos, raving client reviews/testimonials, professionally shot marketing videos, a well-built out and segmented opt-in email list, trust-building awards and industry affiliations, a frequently updated blog and social media profiles and more, you’ll probably NEVER be done promoting yourself as an authority online.

The information on this website is for informational purposes only; it is deemed accurate but not guaranteed. It does not constitute professional advice. All information is subject to change at any time without notice. Contact us for complete details.